The Music in Me
by pink-werewolf
Summary: [oneshot] James finds Lily in the Room of Requirement, shocked at what he hears. JPLE. R&R please.


The Music in Me

James Potter often went to the Room of Requirement. Whenever he went he would pace back and forth requesting the thing he needed the most. He never actually specified what that was, figuring the room knew better than he did. Sometimes it gave him a quite place to study, a place to sleep the day after the full moon, a library after he got kicked out. Once when he was around 15, he had actually requested Lily, but instead the door never appeared.

One day during his seventh year he went buy again, rather bored and looking for some form of entertainment. The door appeared and he opened it, shocked by what he found.

Lily was in a long room, dancing. There was a wooden bar and a one wall was mirrored. She had on shoes like he'd seen ballerinas wear in Muggle books. He watched her dance for a few moments, thinking she was absolutely beautiful. Then she noticed James and she stopped dancing, along with the music, a blush creeping up her face.

"Um, hi," she said truly embarrassed. She didn't realize anyone else knew about this room. No one had ever come in before.

"Hi," he replied. "You were… beautiful." The blush on her face deepened. She silently cursed her red hair.

"Thank you," she said curtly, and proceeded to untie her shoes.

"Why are you doing that?" he asked, perplexed.

"Doing what?" she said, confused herself.

"Taking off your shoes?"

"Oh," she said with another blush. "I figured you wanted to use the room, so I'd just leave.

"Oh no!" he said, sitting in a chair in the corner. "I only came to be entertained. And apparently the Room thought you would entertain me." Lily smiled again, leaning down to retie her shoes.

"The stereo is charmed or something," she said ", so it changes the genre based on what I want, and stops when I want it to. My shoes change too, based on the music and what I want. But I had to do that myself. Flitwick gave me extra credit."

"Like you need it," James teased with a flirty smile.

Bracing herself, Lily started the music again. At first she was uncomfortable, more than usual. She hadn't danced in front of anyone for a long time. But he was a good audience, watching intently, and soon she was comfortable and dancing like she was the only one in the room, like she used too.

James watched, truly amazed. She was breath-takingly beautiful. She danced so fluid, changing gracefully from Pointe, to jazz, to finally lyrical. He watched for what seemed like hours, buy then the music suddenly stopped. Lily sat on the floor, sobbing. James quickly got up from his chair and ran over to her, sitting on the floor. She wrapped her arms around him, crying into his shoulder.

"Shh," he whispered. "What's the matter?"

"A lot of things," she said through her tears.

"You want to talk about it?" She nodded. "You hungry?" he asked, receiving another nod. "Here, we'll go down to the kitchens, get some food, and come back here okay. She nodded again. Checking the map as he through the cloak over them, they left the room, her holding his hand.

The elves in the kitchen were awake and cooking, even at ten o'clock at night. They offered to bring the food to the Room of Requirement for the two, which they were grateful for. When they got back, they entered a room resembling the Gryffindor common room, but smaller, and with a ton of food on the table in front of the fire.

They both sat down on the love seat, facing each other. James handed her a butter beer, getting one for himself. "Have a brownie," James said ", Moony says chocolate helps with everything." Lily nodded. James held her hand, patiently waiting for her to talk. After a while she did.

"I took dance lessons from when I was three years old. It was my mom's idea. She enrolled me and my sister. My sister hated it, but I loved it. I danced constantly, around the house, in my room. My mom loved it. Apparently, she loved dancing when she was younger too. She watched every performance I was ever in.

"When I came here, it was the thing I missed the most from the Muggle world. I told Sev about it," James winced at his name ", but he said I was being silly. I didn't tell him I carried around my shoes in my bag wherever I went, as a sort of talisman I guess. And then one night I was walking back from the library and got lost. And I found this room. Ever since I come hear once a week for six years, just to have fun I never told anyone.

"But then this year I started coming more and more, to deal."

"So that's where you were when I couldn't find you on the map," James thought aloud. Lily looked at him. "You see I… err… noticed something was up with you. And you could never be found. So I started watching you on the map, but I could never find you. I wasn't stalking you…"

"It's okay," she said. "That was really nice."

"So what were you dealing with?" James asked politely.

"Last year, at the end of term, my mom picked me up from the station. My dad couldn't come, he had to work, and my sister, well, she hates me. So we were driving home and I was chatting about my friends and boys, well a certain boy, when we were hit by a drunk driver." James gasped.

"It was bad, really bad. I got put in St. Mungo's where they fixed me up quickly. But my mom was put in a Muggle hospital. She was getting worse. Dumbledore got her transferred to St. Mungo's but the doctor's said the muggles had screwed it up too much, which was partly why they let her be transferred to a hospital they never heard of, didn't want to deal with malpractice. They kept her alive long enough for us to say good bye."

Lily was silent, tears building up in her eyes. James pulled her into his arms and whispered ", I had no idea, I'm so sorry."

"I didn't tell anyone," she said. "It was very stupid of me. I didn't want everyone to pity me, I didn't need fake sympathy. My sister Petunia, she had everyone she had ever met know, but I didn't want that. Petunia didn't talk to me all summer, blamed it on me and the wizards. If I didn't have to be picked up…" Her voice trailed off.

"That wasn't your fault… You should have told me."

"I know," she whispered sadly. "Home was hell. Petunia was always with her boyfriend Vernon. Dad was always at work. We barely spoke at all; he blamed himself, if he had been driving, it wouldn't have happened. But it was ridiculous, everyone blaming themselves and each other. It was no one's fault but the other driver's.

"And then I came back to school and everyone was so happy. No one knew, like I had hoped, but then I regretted that decision even more. I knew if I told anyone now, they'd be angry."

"No they wouldn't'," James interjected. "They'd be upset you didn't tell them, but they wouldn't be angry." Lily shrugged.

"My mom used to send me letters, like every other day. I used to hate it, barely wrote back, but now, my dad will write like once a month a couple of sentences. That's it.

"So dancing was my only outlet. Except it didn't feel right. It was empty and hollow, ugly. I realized my mother, she was the music in me. And now she was gone."

"But you were so beautiful tonight," James whispered. She sighed.

"And that's why I started to cry, because I haven't been that happy in so long. Wow, that sounds completely mental. But tonight I guess I found new music. It's not the same, not at all the same, but it's almost better, in a way."

"What is it?" James asked softly.

"You."

Fin.

A/N: So watcha think??? dreadful??? I thought of it when I found my old dance shoes and just had to write it. Please R&R. Oh and I don't own Harry Potter.


End file.
